apl: Which means a union has zero power. Which means a union is useless. Which implies unions shouldn't exist.

Not at all. They should have as much power as they can maintain by being better and more worthwhile than other groups (organized or not) of workers.

samizdat: Until we take back our government, we will all continue to be screwed, whether from the "left" or from the "right".

apl: That's called an election. Otherwise, you're talking about eliminating the current Constitution.

While I agree that it may never happen without revolution, I'm not advocating one. I'm just saying that the Dems and GOPs have stacked the deck to favor themselves in many and varied and sometimes evil ways. I also acknowledge that they do it with the complacency (read: ignorant acceptance) of the possibility-challenged in our society.

My answer isn't politics. Politics in America is mostly a lost cause, in the present world, for the reason I've just stated. I work to help kids grow up smarter and more self-responsible, in the hopes that they will be able to set aside the mindless drivel they are 'taught' by all the high-powered one-way media and 'education' of our culture.

I'm just saying that the Dems and GOPs have stacked the deck to favor themselves in many and varied and sometimes evil ways.

On that I can agree whole-heartedly. The Constitution does not authorize or empower political parties. While they used to be more organic (parties did come into existence, die, etc.) the current Big Two seem to taken steps to guarantee that they will remain in power.

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other